REVIEW / MOVIE\ BOOGEY MAN' DEEP IN GRATUITOUS GORE\ THE BOOGEY MAN - WRITTEN, DIRECTED AND PRODUCED BY ULLI LOMMEL. STARRING\ SUZANNA LOVE, RON JAMES, AND JOHN CARRADINE. AT THE SACK CINEMA 57\ AND SUBURBS. RATED R.
Boston Globe - November 27, 1980
Author: MICHAEL BLOWEN
People are easily frightened. A flight of dark stairs leading to a musty basement or the creak of a door will send our hearts fluttering and perk up our ears. It's an automatic, primal response.
Filmmakers, more than any other show businessmen, realize that we're cowards and that fear is an emotion that can be easily manipulated. All they need is a dark house, a psychopathic killer and a young woman. It's a formula with inexpensive ingredients that can yield big profits.
"The Boogey Man" is merely the latest entry in the slash and bash sweepstakes. A young woman, obsessed with the murder of her mother's boyfriend by her younger brother, is beset by nightmares. Her husband, the stiff rationalist, insists that it's all in her imagination. But that's not the case.
It seems the maniacal ghost of the victim is trapped in a mirror and attacks anyone whose image catches its reflective gaze.
By the time the mirror is put to rest, it has drawn more blood than the local chapter of the Red Cross. A boy has his neck broken by a slamming
window; a girl has her chest punctured by a pair of scissors; an old man is pinned against the wall of a barn by a pitchfork through his neck; an old woman is strangled by a garden hose; the blade of a knife enters the back of a teenager's neck and comes out his mouth just before his girlfriend is compelled, by forces beyond her control, to give him a final kiss. She dies in his skinny arms.
This is not frightening, it's repulsive. Your eyes reel back from the screen in disgust, rather than horror. It's the oozing blood that repels you, not the well-crafted tension of a genuinely frightening movie such as "Don't Look Now" or "Dressed to Kill."
The economics of horror films featuring no-name actresses, such as Suzanna Love, and bulging advertising budgets are a good investment. The overhead is low (usually under $1 million) and the profit potential is high (" Halloween " returned 18 times its capital investment). Unfortunately, no matter how many times moviegoers have been disappointed by a horror movie that promises more in its commercials than it delivers on the screen, crowds continue to buy tickets.
If you're one of those people, you better watch out. "The Boogey Man" is going to get you. Don't say you weren't warned.
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